Jeremiah Ariaz has traveled Kansas to visit and then photograph the offices of small-town newspapers: The Russell County News, Downs News & Times, The Winfield Daily Courier. A photography professor at Louisiana State University and a Kansas native, Ariaz brings a mixture of reverence and urgency to the project. His collection — still in progress — mixes portraits of the small-town journalists and print shop laborers with dusty still-life images of newspaper artifacts. Ariaz’s images situate the industry facing great challenges while hoping that the papers receive a vital lifeline. On Oct. 6, Ariaz visited the University of Kansas to show his images to my media photography class. He explained how vital rural newspapers are to our democracy. And he told the stories of editors who refuse to let their newspapers gather dust.
Source: Kansas Reflector
